Warning: As this trope deals with attempted Heel-Face Turns - more specifically with those meeting resistance and the natural consequences thereof - spoilers naturally abound.
Characters who struggle to be accepted while making a sincere effort to reform in Comic Books.
- In the "Tarnished Angel" arc of Kurt Busiek's Astro City, Steeljack leaves prison tired of being a supervillain and simply wants to make an honest living for himself. However, he is shunned by most employers, and the only work offers he gets are for supervillain jobs, which he cannot accept lest he break parole. When he tries to investigate a string of murders, his efforts are met with rejection and scorn from people who assume he's up to no good.
- Batman:
- Averted in the comics, where the Penguin reforms, and is incredibly famous with celebrities and rich people wanting to hang around those they feel are "dangerous". He's also legitimately gone straight and makes a killing with his chain of nightclubs.
- Another old comic had Batman opposing the ruling of the parole board and tracking the Penguin mercilessly. But when Batman cracks down on his suspicious-looking business, he discovers (to his chagrin) that the operation was almost legitimate... except for the security, who were fellow ex-cons that the Penguin had hired as a favour, to help them gain employment. Sadly, though, this violation of parole means that the Penguin has to return to prison... but Batman puts in a good word for him this time. (The Penguin's love interest also happens to be a honest woman.)
- In Candor storyline Supergirl and Power Girl team up to save what they believe to be the Bottle City of Kandor -in reality, a psychic manifestation created by telepathic villain Saturn Queen- from an evil dictator, but Supergirl -who back then unknowingly suffered from Kryptonite poisoning which altered her behavior- abruptly and unexpectedly leaves. A while later Supergirl has recovered a bit from her sickness and gotten her head together, so she seeks Power Girl out and apologizes for turning her back on her. Her adult counterpart replies she can't forgive her or trust her.
- After Civil War (2006), Tony Stark had suffered a Heroic BSoD after Happy Hogan and Captain America, both of whom were very good friends of his, died because of his involvement, and tried to make amends to the superhero community he tore in half. While most Pro-Reg members suffered some stigma, Stark was the one most blamed. He ended up returning to alcoholism and didn't quite get everyone's trust again until Dark Reign, when he broke his own brain to stop Norman Osborn (who had taken over the system he established) from getting everyone's identities.
- A sad form of this one is the original Tinkerer, a former mad scientist who served as Marvel General Villain (mostly the Fantastic Four), over a decade after he gives up villainy he's arrested for violating the Superhuman Registration Act when he uses some of his old toys to stop a robbery. It turns out he was protecting his two grandchildren that he had been taking to get ice cream.
- Journey into Mystery (Gillen) dealt with this. Kid Loki, who was genuinely determined to be good, was universally distrusted and the general assumption was that it was all a scheme. And the assumption was right. But it wasn't Kid Loki's scheme: he was just its victim.
- And then Loki: Agent of Asgard revisited it. Loki did win some acceptance thanks to Journey Into Mystery even if it came at the price of child murder that they regretted, long story, but it won't last. Ever. Asgard will never truly accept the god of lies. So Loki finally decides to stop caring about what they think.
- Les Légendaires plays this trope straight (while mixing it with The Atoner) in the Anathos Cycle with Darkhell's daughter Tenebris when she joined the Legendaries. While most of them were at least tolerating her presence, Shimy was convinced keeping her in the group was a major danger, even going as far as scheming with Gryf in order to kill her when the other wouldn't be looking. Granted, considering Tenebris did commit horrible crimes as a villain and the Legendaries had suffered a case of Sixth Ranger Traitor in the previous book, her reserves were founded, but still...
- The Red King was the Big Bad of Planet Hulk, a despotic tyrant who ruled over his entire planet with a level of ferocity and detached cruelty that seemed incalculable to any of his subjects. He was killed and replaced by the Hulk. However, after the holocaust that destroyed Crown City, his body was discovered by the roaming wildebots of the plains, who gave him new life as a cyborg and gave him perspective on the harshness of his actions as Emperor. His daughter, Princess Omaka, refuses to recognize him as a changed man; this is partially because he killed her mother and her brother and burned her arms off when he was king. Skaar, the son of Hulk, is much more understanding, but possibly only because he wasn't alive to see the horrors Red King wrought as planetary leader.
- Deadpool gets hit with this thanks to the events of Secret Empire: he had worked hard to try to be a hero, even when some people thought he wasn't worth it and couldn't stand him being on the Avengers. He had unwittingly joined HYDRA because he followed Steve Rogers and opted to try to subvert many of their actions. However, he ended up in the crosshairs of Maria Hill, who ultimately dropped a parking deck on him just in case she'd thought he would try to double cross her. By the time he gets out, the final fight is over and HYDRA has been defeated, stealing away his chance to show he had truly reformed.
- Throughout Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Snively attempts several Heel Face Turns. Due to assisting Dr Robotnik with conquering and robotising a great deal of Mobius along with being iconic for his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, he is naturally met with some wariness. The later rebooted series begins with Snively having already committed to good and defected to GUN. They accept his help, though due to his past and shady behaviour in the present, he undergoes interrogation several times however. When Knuckles recognises him as having previously stole the Master Emerald for Eggman he makes bluntly clear that while he'll cooperate in ties with GUN, as individuals Snively better stay the hell away from him.
- Spider-Man:
- Eddie Brock (Venom) found himself affected by this at times, as whenever he does try to be a hero nobody trusts him and he usually ends up going back to "eat Spider-Man's brain" mode. But when you're renowned for wearing a malevolent alien parasite with a taste for human flesh, that's understandable. He finally gets his recognition in the Spider-Island arc, where he saves all of New York from being turned into spider-monsters.
- Norman Osborn went through this after undergoing Heel–Face Brainwashing that led him to become The Atoner and the Gold Goblin. Spider-Man was the only person willing to trust him, while Venom (Eddie Brock's son Dylan this time) outright tries to kill him.
- The Steel Claw started out with it's main character being a villain who robbed banks and almost destroyed New York before he pulled a Heel–Face Turn. However despite making up for his mistakes through several heroic acts, he ends up having to fake his death due to the public still fearing him which allows him to join a secret agency known as Shadow Squad.
- The entire premise of Thunderbolts 10 - 70-ish is about this trope. After the team has been outed to be (former) supervillains, they instantly seem to end up on the most wanted list. It takes several heroic moments for them to be somewhat accepted (and not even publicly until either Zemo or Osborn takes care of that).
- Tintin and Alph-Art by Yves Rodier: Played for Laughs, where it's revealed that Allan Thompson, who frequently acted as The Dragon to various villains in the series, swore off the criminal lifestyle after the events of Flight 714 and tried to make an honest living as a postal worker. The next panel then shows him being chased by a large dog, and evidently finding his new life no less stressful than his old one.
- After his Heel–Face Turn at the end of Dark Cybertron, Transformers: More than Meets the Eye has Megatron undergoing one of these and joining the Lost Light crew. They're not very fond of him, though, and most tend to distrust and berate him for his previous actions (not without merit—dude has hundreds of billions of deaths on his shoulders). The fact he was made the ship's new co-captain does not help matters, with many viewing he was let off lightly. Heck, it's one of the driving factors behind The Mutiny that occurs at the end of the second season, as the mutineers want Megatron and his supporters off the ship. While it's hinted a few times that he might revert back to his tyrannical conqueror behavior, it sticks long enough that he kills the Decepticon Justice Division single-handedly to atone for creating them in the first place, and starts his revolution anew via peaceful means in the Functionist Universe. By the end of the series, though, in spite of everything he's done since, the Galactic Council sentences him to either death or infinite imprisonment, which he freely admits are the only two realistic outcomes for someone who'd committed countless atrocities across the galaxy for millions of years.
- Watchmen. Rorschach continually harasses dying ex-supervillain Moloch because he's skeptical about Moloch's claims that he's given up crime. However, by that point the two are really the only two people in the world who truly understand each other and Rorschach seems genuinely disturbed by Moloch's death.
- Wonder Woman (Rebirth): While Diana and Etta forgive Barbara for her time as Cheetah, Steve Trevor doesn't.
- X-Men:
- Rogue suffered from this pretty badly when she first joined the X-Men. Professor X had to guilt-trip the team out of quitting when he took her in (Carol Danvers, attacked her on sight and did storm off) and it took multiple Heroic Sacrifice moments on her part to actually win them over. Moreover, after she had established herself as a loyal member of the team, Dazzler joined up complete with grudge for yet more drama. Carol Danvers was completely justified, considering what Rogue did to her powers and mind, but to this day they don't get along.
- Things went somewhat easier for Magneto as far as the X-Men themselves were concerned (the transition aided by the end of their last battle and multiple Enemy Mine encounters since), but the treatment by the rest of the world in addition to his own instability kept things from sticking (at least, that was/is the official line).
- Emma Frost. In Astonishing X-Men, Kitty is unconvinced due to the past between them (Emma is literally the first supervillain Kitty ever encountered). Emma takes advantage of this trope by recruiting her to the "Astonishing X-Men" team so that she'll notice she's not really redeemed after all. This doesn't help out the fact that this is Cassandra Nova's doing of manipulating her belief that she can't redeem herself leading to Kitty nearly killing Emma if it wasn't for Cyclops reminding her this is exactly what Emma wanted. It doesn't take a while in Giant Size Astonishing X-Men #1 that they have their moment of reconciliation before Kitty sacrifices her life in phasing the Breakworld's bullet through Earth.
